BIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM T. WILLIAMSON, HARRISON COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA

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Submitted by Valerie Crook
(vfcrook@earthlink.net)


The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 578-579
Harrison

WILLIAM T. WILLIAMSON. The subject of the telephone,
its early history and the remarkable extent of the service,
facilities and great capitalization involved in the modern
telephone industry in the state, receives special attention
on other pages of this history.  The division manager
for the Bell Telephone System in West Virginia, where
the company is known as the Chesapeake & Potomac Tele-
phone Company of West Virginia, is William T. William-
son, who has spent practically all his adult life in the
business of transportation or communication, and for twenty-
one years has been connected with the telephone company,
during which time his headquarters have been at Charleston.

He was born at Marietta, Ohio, in 1871, son of Rev.
Thomas W. and Lydia (Sayre) Williamson, his mother a
native of West Virginia.  Both parents are deceased.
Thomas W. Williamson spent a life of service and real
distinction in the ministry of the Methodist Church. He
served churches in the West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio
conferences.

About 1875, when William T. Williamson, was four years
of. age, his parents moved from Marietta to Volcano, West
Virginia, where he first attended school. Later they moved
to Huntington, where he finished the high school course,
following which he was a student in the Ohio Wesleyan
University at Delaware. For some twelve or thirteen years
Mr. Williamson was in the service of the Chesapeake &
Ohio Railroad, in various capacities, and at different points
in this state, being agent at White Sulphur Springs, agent
at Montgomery, claim agent, with headquarters at Hunt-
ington, and passenger and ticket agent at Charleston. He
resigned the latter office in 1901 to become manager of
the Charleston Exchange of the Southern Bell Telephone
and Telegraph Company, which company later sold its
property in West Virginia to the Chesapeake & Potomac
Telephone Company.

Since then his abilities have brought him successsive
promotions with the Telephone company. He wag super-
intendent of the commercial, traffic and plant departments,
and is now division manager of the company, his division
embracing the entire State of West Virginia. He is also
a member of the Board of Directors of the company. Mr.
Williamson has not only done effective work in improving
and building up the facilities of the company in the state,
but is widely known for his generous attitude toward
the public and his ability to encourage cooperation be-
tween the people and the company, resulting in the general
betterment of the service.

Mr. Williamson is a member of the Board of Trustees
of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, superintendent
of the Sunday School, and is a York and Scottish Rite
Mason and Shriner, being a past potentate of Beni-Kedem
Temple and has several times represented the temple in
the imperial Council. He married Miss Elizabeth S. Slack,
a native of Charleston, and daughter of John Slack. They
have one daughter, Mrs. Harriet W. Barrett.